Navigating through the Warp
“Into the jaws of hell lads, that’s where we’re going. The warp will as soon as burn your soul from your bones as look at you. Be thankful we have a Navigator to guide us, but you had better damn well hope he knows his trade!” –Deck Master Derkan Grym of the Sanguineous Saint The primary role of all Navigators is guiding ships into, through, and out of the warp. Whilst the rest of the ship’s crew and the ship’s captain maintain the systems of the ship, keeping the vessel’s plasma and warp drives functioning and its Gellar Field strong, the Navigator carefully studies the currents and fluctuations of the warp as well as the distance and strength of the Astronomican. Using this information, he tells the captain to make course corrections and when it is wise to leave or enter the warp. The actual Translation—as entering and exiting the warp is known—from real space to warp space or vice versa is relatively simple and does not require the skill of a Navigator, though his input can be invaluable lest the vessel find itself immediately assailed by an empyreal storm, warp rift, or worse. Once the vessel is in the warp, however, not having a Navigator would leave a captain with no idea as to the vessel’s position relative to real space, the distance they have travelled, or where they will end up when the ship exits the warp except crude guesswork based on existing warp charts. ''' The Fundamentals of Warp Navigation' Navigating the warp in game terms consists of a number of stages at which the Navigator must test to perceive the nature of the warp and then steer a course through it. These stages are: • Stage One: Determining Duration of Passage • Stage Two: Locating of the Astronomican • Stage Three: Charting the Course • Stage Four: Steering the Vessel • Stage Five: Leaving the Warp Each of these stages and the tests requires are detailed below. 'Stage One: Determining Duration of Passage' The duration of a voyage is measured in subjective time; time as experienced by the Navigator and the crew of the vessel in days and hours of “untroubled passage.” This calculation assumes that the vessel is following a favourable warp current and operating under good conditions. If all goes well the voyage will pass in this time. The base time of a voyage through the warp is determined by the Game Master and then modified by how well the Navigator steers the course of his craft (see Table 7-2: Example Durations of Passage). The figure is selected by the Games Master and kept secret from the Navigator and other players, though a Navigator may attempt to estimate the duration of passage based on what he knows of the course he must steer (see below); he might be right or he may be wildly incorrect based upon actual conditions in the warp when the passage is attempted. The duration of passage set by the GM is used as the base value for all of the subsequent stages of travel. ' The Navigator’s Estimate' A Navigator preparing a passage he is familiar with, or for which he has good navigational information, (such as a chart or navigational cipher), will have a good sense of how long it should take to arrive at his destination. In order to determine this, the Navigator can make a Navigation (Warp) Test (although what modifiers for difficulty apply and whether this is passed or failed should be kept secret by the GM). If he passes, the GM should give him a roughly accurate estimate of how long the voyage should take under the expected conditions. If he fails, then his estimate will be inaccurate, although just how much it is off by is up to the GM to determine, based on how badly the test was failed. ' Going Into the Unknown' It is quite possible that a Navigator must plot a course to a location with which he is not familiar, in which case he may have no real idea of easy it will be to reach or how long it will take. In these circumstances, the GM should not give the Navigator an estimation of how long the journey may take beyond the roughest “educated guess.” '''The Passage of Time in Real Space' The subjective time experienced by those travelling through the warp is different from that that passes in the physical world. The amount by which time experienced within the warp and real space varies is not fixed, but if it is necessary to calculate how much time has passed in the real world whilst a ship was in the warp, use a ratio of one day of passage in the "open warp” to 12 days passing in real space on average. The Game Master should, however, feel free to vary this ratio as he sees fit and on the most stable warp routes this should be less (even in 1 to 1 parity in some places), and in turbulent areas potentially much worse. Factual accounts of ships arriving at their destination centuries late are thankfully extremely rare, but known (and should never “randomly” occur during the game). There have even been accounts of ships that have actually arrived at their destination before they have left! ''The Astronomican'' It is only through the blessings of the Emperor and his blazing presence in the Immaterium that warp travel is made possible across the breadth of the Imperium. Known as the Astronomican, a beacon lit by the Emperor’s will projected out from the Golden Throne and fuelled by the psychic choir of martyrdom, this guiding star shines across the galaxy through the churning darkness of the warp. It provides both a point of reference and a psychic lifeline to Navigators, allowing them to find their way in the nightmare confusion of the Immaterium. 'Stage Two: Location of the Astronomican' When a vessel Translates into the warp, a Navigator must gauge the strength of the Astronomican, to judge just how far and in what direction he is from Terra so that he may then plot a course. To do this, he makes an Ordinary (+10) Awareness Test. For every degree of success achieved, add +10 to any Navigation (Warp) skill tests for this voyage, whilst for every degree of failure a –10 modifier is imposed instead. If the test is failed by three or more degrees of failure, the Astronomican cannot be located—the Halo Stars are notorious for difficulties in finding the beacon’s signal. In some rare cases, the Astronomican cannot be found—especially turbulent warp storms and other unnatural phenomena may obscure its signal, or the Navigator’s vessel may simply have travelled beyond the Astronomican’s reach. If the Navigator cannot locate the beacon of the Astronomican, he must pass a Hellish (–60) Navigation (Warp) Test in order to chart a successful course. Without the Astronomican, the Navigator must rely upon his own experience, skill, and ancient charts of real- and warpspace (some especially accurate charts may, at the GM’s discretion, grant a bonus to this Test). If he fails the Test, the Navigator may not try again unless at the GM’s discretion, or if a transient event (such as a warpstorm) ends. Stage Three: Charting the Course Once the Navigator has a point of reference, he must then use his extraordinary perceptions to determine any turbulence, strange phenomena, or storms laying in wait in the Empyrean that will affect the passage of the vessel as it travels. This is another Ordinary (+10) Perception Test, whose results are kept secret by the GM. Success means that if there is any significant warp disturbance along the route then the Navigator has likely detected it, failure means that he has not. In either case, should the Navigator fail this roll, he will be ignorant of any dangers that lay ahead. The effects of this test will influence the chance of avoiding serious warp encounters (see page 185) during the voyage. 'Stage Four: Steering the Vessel' With the Astronomican located and the local state of the warp gauged, the Navigator now makes his Navigation roll to determine both the accuracy of his voyage and travel time. This is a Navigation (Warp) Skill Test modified by the Navigator’s perception of the Astronomican (see Stage Two) and the general difficulty of the passage. Refer to the Navigation Chart to see the results of this test. Off Course If a Navigator fails his Navigation (Warp) test and rolls a 9 on either dice, he is thrown off course, the vessel will appear in the wrong system or part of space (as determined by the GM). 'Encounters in the Warp' Warp travel is seldom a routine and dull affair, and the Navigator must maintain constant vigilance lest the vessel become lost or imperilled. This peril increases the longer the vessel spends in the warp and the further it travels. To reflect the perils of warp travel, the Navigator should make a roll on Table 7-4: Warp Travel Encounters (see page 185) once for every five full days of travel within the warp. If a journey takes under five days to complete, one roll on the Warp Travel Encounters table is still made. Each of the rolls for warp encounters gains a +20 bonus if the Navigator succeeded in the Perception test whilst Assessing Warp Conditions in Stage Three. ''Gellar Field Failures in Game'' How to represent a Geller Field failure is left up to the GM’s imagination, but it should an utterly horrifying experience for players. They must quickly restore the Geller Field if they hope to survive, and even if they accomplish this, they will still be faced with a ship full of monstrous entities. The GM should feel free to pit them against all manner of daemonic adversaries, in any monstrous and terrible forms he chooses. Even if the players triumph, damage to their ship’s Morale should be severe, and depending on the severity of the failure, there could be severe damage to Crew Population as well (see page 224). If the battles were particularly ferocious, certain ship Components could be damaged, depressurized, or even in flames. For the players, killing the daemons may be just the beginning… ''For the GM: Difficulty of Passage'' The Game Master should choose a duration of passage based on how difficult the voyage is and how far away the intended destination. Travel through “open warp” where no unusual phenomena or turbulence occur should be a Routine (+20) Navigation test. If the Navigator is using an established warp route or corridor, or has detailed information such as the secret charts found in a Navis Prima (see page 146), the test should be considered Easy (+30). Where passages are attempted into the unknown, or where general conditions in the warp are known to adverse (prone to storms, etc.), tests should be Difficult (–10) or worse. Alternatively, if the route is very well established and the Navigator has previously travelled it many times, the GM may decide that the Navigator need not make a roll at all nor test for Warp Travel Encounters (see Encounters in the Warp on page 186 in this section). ''' Stage Five: Leaving the Warp' Once the Navigator’s destination has been reached, he must make a Hard (–20) Perception Test to determine the accuracy of his entrance point in real space, which in general terms the Navigator can perceive from the warp in a shadowy and indistinct fashion. Succeeding at this test means that the vessel exits the warp were the Navigator intended. A failure means that the ship exits off target (dangerously close to a planetary body rather than in the outer reaches of a system for example), with degrees of failure indicating a more extreme deviation. '''Warp Travel Encounters' The warp is a deeply strange and terrifying place filled with things not meant for the mind of man. As Rogue Traders, the players will spend a great deal of time within the warp travelling from one place to another. The above table can be used in conjunction with the rules for navigating the warp, or simply to spice up sojourns in the immaterium and remind the players that there is no such thing as completely safe travel in the void…